


Muted

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula Week, Gen, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Song As A Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 14:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19831774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: Azula Week Day 3: Song As A Prompt. Azula is heavily medicated and wishes that they would just leave her to her emotions. Song used; MXMS’ RX.





	Muted

Another pill works itself into her system. 

She isn’t angry anymore. She doesn’t thrash about breathing fire. 

She isn’t sad anymore.

But she isn’t anything anymore. 

These days, she doesn’t seem to feel. Unless numb is an emotion. Azula thinks that it is the pills. No, she knows that it is the work of the pills. The mute everything. She wants to be disturbed, but she can’t muster it. She wants to feel happy but the medication seems to suppress serotonin just as much as her rage and sorrow.

No matter how hard she tries she can’t coax any emotion at all. 

But it is for her own good, they promise. If they take her off of the pill her mind turns to the sinister things. To revenge and hate. They promise her that this empty feeling is better than the brewing volcano beneath. 

Azula always nods her head as they pop the pills into her mouth. Deep down she knows that it isn’t right. But, agni, her head is too foggy to dispute it. She wanders to her bed and paces about for a few minutes before flopping down upon the mattress and tucking herself in. 

She is tired.

So very tired. 

She wonders if that is also because of the pills. 

She curls herself up as her eyelids grow heavy. 

.oOo.

Azula wakes up with a burst of energy. She hasn’t felt such in a long time. She thinks that maybe she is happy to feel energy, but the feeling is so foreign after so many months that she can’t exactly name it nor say for sure. 

She realizes that they haven’t given her, her morning medication. 

Things seem more vivid. 

Her senses sharper. 

She almost wants to cry, if for no other reason than to release the emotions built up inside of her. She knows that she can’t, they will take it the wrong way and drive more pills down her throat. For the moment, this one sweet moment, she savors what it is like to have emotions again. 

Azula hears their footsteps and her happiness gives way to dread and anger. She welcomes the feelings, she will relish in them…but not for very long. They know how to handle her by now; a small burst of lightning has her on the floor and the medication is in her mouth again. She cries out in anger and defeat a few times until the fight leaves her body.

.oOo.

Azula tries half-heartedly to muster up fury, it should be easy with Zuko standing so close. Yet, she is still dull.

Muted. 

He tells her that things are going to be okay, that they will work out. She doesn’t believe him but can only muster up a small shrug. She rests the top right side of her head against the wall that her bed is pushed up against. 

She absently fidgets with her hair. Zuko wears a look of concern. Azula drops her head to the pillow. 

“Aren’t you going to yell at me? Insult me?” He asks. 

“No.” Azula replies simply.

His concern seems to amplify.

.oOo. 

They don’t come back the next day nor the day after that. Azula wonders if they are trying to lull her into a false sense of security. For two days they have left her unmedicated. 

Unmedicated and conflicted. 

Part of her wants the pills back. 

She has been emotionally numb for so long that she can’t remember how to manage her feelings on her own. She thinks she has grown to rely on them.

She cringes at the thought. 

  
They ask her if she want to take her pills. They have never given her a choice before. She almost says yes; her mind is such a swirling and chaotic frenzy of suppressed feelings. Azula manages to shake her head no. 

They leave her to deal with her rage and her anguish. With her confusion and fear. With her strange dash of comfort. She tries to keep her cries soft enough to not draw attention and the bite of a needle. She lets the raw feelings exit her body tear by tear. The sense of calmness that seeps in, after she has tired herself out and ran her tear deposit dry, leaves her wondering why she hasn’t really cried before that moment. 

Somehow she feels relieved, like a weight is missing. 

Azula wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and composes herself just in time for the door to open. Mostly anyhow–she is no longer crying. She is smiling. She doesn’t know exactly why and she is certain that they’d drug her up again if they saw her smile. She knows that it is an uncanny smile. She can’t erase it in time for someone to enter. 

Zuko is back. 

Once again she cannot muster up anger. This time it is her own weary body rather than a pill induced haze. 

He looks at her, wholly perplexed by the expression she wears. Even though it is fading. She realizes why she is smiling. Even if she tells him, he will think her more insane than he already does. It is because he doesn’t understand why being happy makes her happy in itself. It is because he has never felt the absence she had. He has never felt absolutely nothing before.

Azula tries to articulate the feeling. 

To explain it. 

She can’t afford to have him calling for the nurses to drug her again. 

He chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment before replying, “I understand.”

She crinkles her brow, having not expecting him to. 

“Sort of.” He adds. “I told them to take you off of them. You…you weren’t…” He seems to struggle to find out how to say it. 

“That didn’t bother you?” She asks, referring to her unnatural smile. 

He sakes his head. 

“I didn’t disturb you at all?”

He shakes his head again. “You weren’t you.” He pauses. “That was disturbing. You were so…”

“Vacant.” She finishes for him.

He nods in agreement. “That bothered me.” 

Azula swallows, just how hollow had she been to make him pity her? For him to wake a dragon? She stares off, her happiness beginning to taper. She sees relief flash across his face and maybe it is because she is making an expression of her own. Albeit, it is crease-browed and sullen. But it bleeds her personality. 

She had missed having one. 

It has been so long that she doesn’t quite remember what her personality had been.

She supposes it, or a new and similar one, will develop again. 

Perhaps it will be vastly different though. 

Azula decides that such is fine by her. At least she will be a person again rather than a shell of something formerly human. 

She just hopes that they will allow her the chance to form a new personality. “I want to leave this place.” She requests. “They’ll just medicate me again when you turn your back.” 

His brows furrow as he thinks it over. 

Finally, he approves the request. 

Azula stands and rubs at tired eyes. 

At least now, she has a chance.


End file.
